1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to communication systems, methods and devices. More particularly, the invention relates to wireless gateways for improving discovery of local services and devices and interacting with the discovered services and devices.
2. Description of Prior Art
A home networking environment for Audio Visual (AV) and other devices is being standardized at forums like UPnP, and the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA). The connectivity media considered to be most popular among the Consumer Electronics (CE) manufacturers are WLAN and Ethernet. Also, the media format most likely to be adopted will be MPEG2. The AV environment will include an increasing amount of devices providing services and connectivity over wireless links (e.g. Bluetooth, WLAN). Homes will become fully networked. The AV equipment, as an example, will have wireless connectivity; support service discovery and utilize standardized methods of controlling the equipment.
Presently, mass market phones do not implement the core technologies required by the home networking described above. This case is most likely to prevail for quite a while due to techno-economic reasons. WLAN is too expensive to implement on mass market terminals, and MPEG2 media format being too computationally intensive for the processing capacity of such devices. On the contrary, the mass market mobile phones will implement Bluetooth wireless technology and support MPEG4 media format.
What is needed in the art is a logical Gateway implementing various short-range communication protocols, such as, for example, Bluetooth, Ultra Wideband and Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), supporting various media formats such as, for example MPEG 2 and MPEG 4, and serving as a control point for a proximity/home environment, the Gateway providing not only connectivity, but also media conversion, and functioning as a service directory.
Prior art related to Gateways includes:
1. U.S. Pat. No. 6,768,896 B2 entitled “Wireless systems internet gateway”, issued Jul. 27, 2004, filed Jan. 4, 2001 discloses a portable gateway designed to be a bridge between a Bluetooth network and a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN). The portable gateway has at least one and preferably two slots for receiving a PC Card or a Compact Flash Card. By means of selecting suitable PC Cards the portable gateway can bridge between any wireless networks. The gateway preferably comprises an embedded server for distributing parameters relating to the different networks, such as network names, user name and password and also other parameters regarding for example security. The server is accessed from a remote input wireless terminal, such as mobile telephone.
2. U.S. Pat. No. 6,452,910 B1 entitled “Bridging Apparatus for Interconnecting a Wireless PAN and a Wireless LAN”, issued Sep. 17, 2002 discloses a wireless bridge conjoins two previously incompatible technologies within a single device to leverage the strengths of each. The wireless bridge marries the Personal Area Network (PAN) technology of Bluetooth as described in Bluetooth Specification Version 1.0B with the Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) technology described in the IEEE 802.11 (a) specification to provide a wireless system level solution for peripheral devices to provide Internet service interactions. A single working device implements these technologies so they do not interfere or disrupt the operation of each other and instead provide a seamless transition of a Bluetooth connection to Wireless Local Area Network/Internet connection. The wireless bridge extension allows a Bluetooth-enabled device to roam from one Wireless Access Point (bridge) to the next without losing its back end connection. The bridge takes into account the minimum separation and shielding required of these potentially conflicting technologies to inter-operate.
None of the prior art discloses a gateway providing connectivity, conducting media conversion and/or service/device discovery and providing a user interface to a device operating in a first wireless network to interact with at least one service/device operating in a second wireless network.